


Discoveries

by asylumchild



Category: Overwatch (Video Game), Widowtracer - Fandom
Genre: F/F, How They Met, Implied Widowmaker | Amelie Lacroix/Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Memoirs, Non-Canon Relationship, POV Tracer Lena Oxton, POV Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix, Widowmaker | Amélie Lacroix Redemption, lesbian love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-02 21:50:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12735009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asylumchild/pseuds/asylumchild
Summary: Small collection of the memoirs of Amélie Lacroix and Lena Oxton and their recollections of what led up to the romantic relationship they have now.





	1. Amélie memoir 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea I had reading some other materials. Each memoir will be the POV of either Amélie or Lena. I've been working on my French to make Amélie's entries more believable as well as my English slang to make Lena's better as well. Just think of this as sort of an "in their own words".  
> Also, Revenons à nos moutons is a common French phrase which translates to "back to what we were talking about". Kind of like Americans saying "well, anyways..." She also says Ouais enfin which is kinda like saying "ah, well..." Enfin is the French equivalent of "uh" or "um" Ouais, enfin…faut vivre avec! (Yeah, well…gotta live with it!)

Discoveries

 

Amélie

 

You will have to forgive me. English is not my first language. I am fluent, of course, but sometimes, the words do not come as easily for me as they would another. I actually speak a number of languages. English, German, Dutch, and Spanish to be clear. Although, the Mexican Spanish Sombra speaks is a bit different from the dialect they speak in Spain. _Ouais enfin_ …

I am sure you would like to know more about me, _non?_ I wish I could oblige you, but alas, I am discovering things as I go along myself. I know a few things. For instance, _je m’appelle_ Amélie Lacroix. I am unsure of my age but I am told I am around thirty-four years old. I was married once to a man named Gérard Lacroix who was a prominent figure in Overwatch before he was assassinated by an organization named Talon. This detail is the most clear to me because _I_ am the one who killed him. I am also known as Widowmaker and I am … was … a Talon operative and assassin. I was trained from the beginning to kill marks Talon deemed too dangerous to allow to live and I was honed into a perfect weapon. Cold, efficient, precise, and most of all, completely unaware of the extensive torture and brainwashing I had been subjected to.

All I knew was death. All I could feel was the thrill of the hunt, the pure ecstasy of pulling the trigger from a hundred meters away and snuffing the life of an unsuspecting victim. Feeling my own dark heart pulse with the essence of life I stole from my prey. I was a cold, unfeeling thing that fed on the life of others like a legendary vampire of old stories. But I was not a vampire. I was much, much worse.

I knew nothing of my past. Who I was, what I was, I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was feeding my hunger. That gnawing ache in my heart that barely beat, yearning for life. The sheer addiction of feeling the moment of death at my hands. It was like a drug. I craved it, wanted it, like an abusive lover whom I begged for affection but was only teased with promises of more that never seemed enough. A touch, a kiss, a stolen moment, leaving me aching more, wanting more, almost crying aloud with equal parts pain and pleasure. I loved how death made me feel but I hated how it only gave me a taste of what I wanted. It was never enough. It was an uncontrollable lust that extended almost to the point of no control. That’s how they wanted it. Talon, I mean. They wanted to keep me hungry. Wanted me to crave that killing stroke more and more. They held it over my head like a bone to a faithful dog! Just allowing me to have the scraps to keep me a faithful dog but just bloodthirsty enough to be ravenous. It was a delicate dance they performed. And I, their willing slave, broken and defeated in body and mind, was helpless to stop myself from dancing to their tune. I was lost. The worst part is I didn’t even know I was lost.

Then, I met her. I didn’t know her name at first. All I remember when seeing her first was how ridiculous she looked with her bright colored clothing and short, spiky hair. She wore aviation goggles that were the same color as her leggings. Seeing how young she was, I thought Overwatch had recruited children playing superheroes. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or so with big, wide eyes and a confident smirk. The girl had freckles … freckles! And she was laughing and cheering as she flew about, propelled by some device strapped to her chest. I thought of how foolish the girl was. She seemed to think this was a game and I was going to show her what a big mistake she made crossing me.

She was zooming around with a bright blue glow from whatever the device was on her chest. With a smile, I realized that was the source of her power and, unfortunately for her, it was located right in the middle of her breasts. It was like a neon sign pointing straight to her heart. All I had to do was shoot the beacon so conveniently displayed for me and I could not only keep the “superhero” from flying around by destroying her little toy, but I would get to kill her instantly with a shot through the heart.

My own heart pulsed and I felt that all too familiar coiling of anticipation of the kill. I aimed, seeing her dead center in my visor’s sights, and took a deep breath, my finger on the trigger, my throat loosing a moan of the pleasure to come as Widow’s Kiss fired and bucked her soft recoil into my shoulder. But my moment of joy was stolen and my breath hitched in disbelief as I saw but a flash of blue and watched as my shot was wasted on nothing but air. I missed! I never miss! My eyes flew open and my visor snapped back into place on my temples. I frantically looked around and saw nothing. No scream, no body, no kill. She was gone!

Panic seized me. This had never happened before! Where did she go? I was about to activate my visor once more when I felt a tapping on my shoulder. I spun around to see a flash of blue and hear a giggle.

“Too slow!” a voice said that, at the time, only served to anger me. Funny thing that. Her first words I remember her saying to me. The funny thing is, even then, they were familiar. Not the words, _per se_ , I mean, more the voice. Her voice. At the time I was so caught up in the moment of how she had thrown me off balance that I failed to truly think on where I had heard that voice before. As she likes to say, ever get that feeling of deja vu?

__Revenons à nos moutons_ _ _._

She further punctuated her taunting and added small injury to insult by kicking me in the ass. It not only made me angrier, but literally and mentally threw me off balance. I stumbled to keep my footing and my mind was reeling in the absolute disbelief that I had missed a shot and was being toyed with! Never had I been so insulted. I spun to shoot at her and she zipped out of the way of the bullets I carelessly spewed from my precious Widow’s Kiss. This only proved to infuriate me more and I remember my growl of indignation turning into a pure feral scream of fury!

“Ooh,” she purred, laughing as if we were children having an argument. “Did I make ya mad? Do you turn red when you get angry or purple?”

I shot another spray only to have her not only dodge it, but jerk my weapon aside and get directly in my face. She was laughing at me.

“I was wondering why your skin was bl-”

She stopped mid sentence as her eyes widened and she looked at me with such a stare of shock. I vaguely remembered two things at that moment. One, that look was the same as the Egyptian sniper I had killed in one of my starting missions – or rather, thought I had killed. I had no knowledge at the time that Ana Amari was alive and only missing an eye. Two, I also recognized this one’s face. Those round cheeks, eyes I knew were hazel under those ridiculous goggles, and that spiky hair that, now that she was right there, up close, I knew I had seen those haphazard spikes before. We knew each other but, at the time, her name eluded me.

I didn’t fire. She didn’t follow through with her attack. We stood there, motionless as if time stood still. My thoughts raced, warring with one another. One thought was kill her, other thoughts were trying, frantically, to remember her face and her name. I thought, why did I know her? Who is this girl?

“Cor blimey!” she breathed. “You! You can’t be you! It can’t be!”

I was about to ask her who she was, despite my training and better judgment, but it was at that moment that Reaper growled a command over my communications link, demanding to know where I was and my status, and effectively ruining the moment for me to get some answers or, more importantly, take this foolish girl out. I was just about to do that when, in a flash of blue and a dash, she was gone. I calmed myself before answering Reaper. Apparently I needed to rush to the Overwatch Memorial museum and back him up as we were to steal the Doomfist from a display there.

Well, I don’t think I need to recap what happened at the museum. It wasn’t our greatest failure but it certainly wasn’t our finest moment. To this day, I will never forget that boy who, out of reflex, knocked me to the floor with the Doomfist. If it wasn’t for all the modifications Talon had made to my body, I don’t know if I would have been able to even get up from that floor that day, much less grab Reaper and make a hasty escape. All the while, that girl … that foolish girl … had taunted me, laughed at me, and hooted and cheered, infuriating me and doing something that no one had. She broke my concentration, for one. For another, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It wasn’t until Reaper and I were back at a Talon base that I realized my heart was beating. Slowly as always, but I felt it. She had done that. I felt better than I remember ever feeling. It was beyond that simple thrill of killing. She had challenged me! I felt more alive than I had ever.

Seeing me deep in thought, Reaper asked me what my problem was.

“That girl,” I said. “The one we fought. Who was she?”

Reaper snorted. Everything he did under that mask of his always sounded like it was in a tunnel or something and the sound was like a hiss from an ancient steam engine than the breath of a man.

“Oxton,” he replied with such hatred he almost spat out the name. “Lena Oxton. Overwatch calls her ‘Tracer’. What a joke that is.”

He turned away and stalked off before I could ask what he meant by that. Lena Oxton. I said the name aloud, softly as to not be heard from anyone who might have been listening, just to hear the sound of it. It rang true to my ears. Something in the back of my mind awoke. The name and the face were fighting to find some meaning to my muddled thoughts. I knew her. Somehow, I knew her but I couldn’t at the time remember how or why I did. Overwatch had something to do with it. Gérard had been with Overwatch. Had I known her from him? I couldn’t remember.

I do remember the headache it gave me trying to think of where I had heard her name and seen her face before. I remember also the restless sleep I had with thoughts of that round face and wide eyes as she said “it can’t be”. I knew, somehow, she knew who I was too. Who I really was.


	2. Lena (memoir 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena's first memoir about first meetings and what happened on King's Row.

Lena

 

A lot of people didn’t see it coming and a lot did, I’ll tell you that much. I never really got to know her before all the blue skin and brainwashing and whatnot. I mean, I knew Gérard was married and all. Hell, he talked about her with pride and joy a lot. Seen her around here and there, but it weren’t like she was a regular on the base or anything there in Switzerland.

I knew some things about her from Gérard. She was a ballerina for one. Came from the once rich and powerful Guillard family. They had a rather large estate out in Annecy before the Revolution and I’m not sure what happened after that. Amélie says something about how she’s returned there and fixed the place up. Kinda uses it as her actual home, I think. We’ve talked about going there next big holiday leave we get.

That alone should let you know she’s on the up and up. Starting to remember her life before Talon. Bastards had her all wrapped up in genetic experimentation and all that rot. As far as we know, no one knows she’s been at the chateau, especially not Talon, but we’ve got to be extra sure.

You know what the one thing I admire about her is? You’re gonna think I’m nutters but it’s her profile. Think I’ve got a screw loose or something? You ain’t seen her perched on a rooftop with the light of the moon barely making out the shape of her slim-lined silhouette! It’s quite fetching. She’s all tall and graceful. Yeah, I know more often than not she’s got her Widow’s Kiss and is looking through her tactical visor to the get the bead on some bloke what’s got on her bad side, but she’s still breath-taking. Like a panther or something.

Don’t tell her I said that. She’ll never let me live it down.

Well, it’s no surprise that it wasn’t all sweet words and knowing glances between us. We were enemies once. I mean like arch-enemies – like you read in one of those comic books. To be honest though, no matter how much we fought or how she tried to kill me, I never hated her. Never wanted her dead. Even after what happened that night in King’s Row.

 

_[Lena pauses and sighs]_

 

You think I would have after what she did. But here’s the confusing part: she done what she done, but I wasn’t feeling any hate. I wasn’t even really angry. I was … well, bollocks … I was hurt. I lashed out at her not to stop her or even hurt her. I just wanted to know why.

Most people that I’ve told the story to have wondered why I did what I did. It was definitely a strange experience. I know she thought about it as much as I did which goes to show how strange it was when someone who isn’t even supposed to feel any emotion anymore felt something was off about the whole mess.

You know, I don’t even know what made me go up on that rooftop that night. I just felt like something was wrong. I saw the security do their normal checks and all should have been ok. But when I felt that little twinge in my guts, that cold feeling of something off, I have learned to never ignore it. Maybe it was the feeling that something was wrong or maybe, in some weird way, I felt her. I hope you don’t think I’m overly romanticizing the whole affair but it’s pretty well established that Amélie and I have always shared a bond of sorts. Hell, she felt it – and she can tell you she felt it even though she weren’t supposed to feel nothing whatsoever – so I know it weren’t just me with the goo goo eyes.

 

_[Lena laughs]_

 

Anyways, for whatever reason, I felt that sense of something afoot, y’know? So I figure I’d just give it a looksee and make sure all is well. Didn’t really expect nothing, but in my line of work, you can’t really be too careful. Especially with my gut screaming at me that something was up. That’s when I noticed the unconscious guards.

Now, I’m gonna take a breather right here at this part of the story to point something out: Widowmaker, Talon assassin and deadly femme fatale extraordinaire, someone who is supposed to get off on killing people, didn’t shoot at nobody but me and Mondatta. Don’t you find that a little odd? I sure did. I guess it was so there wouldn’t be too much of a mess. She’s never been one for messes. Prim and proper to a T, that one! Maybe they didn’t want to raise the alarm too early so she could get a better shot at her target. But fact of the matter is, she didn’t kill any guards. She pasted them upside their noggins or otherwise quickly and quietly took them out of commission without the use of lethal force. She probably would have gotten away with it too had I not spotted that familiar silhouette I was just telling about earlier.

So, I got the drop on her – which is way easier said than done, let me tell you – with a quick burst of some pulse pistol fire and a cheerful “trying to crash another party, love?”

You could see the shift in her demeanor right off. She went from calm and cool to surprise to absolute fury. The more I zipped and zagged and teased her, the angrier she got. The angrier she got, the more she concentrated on me and got sloppy with her shots and, most importantly wasn’t shooting at Mondatta. I thought I was getting to her, I thought I was making enough noise to mess up her operation. I was, actually. It was a crazy, hair-brained idea, but it was a crazy, hair-brained idea that was _working_.

But, I underestimated her. I should have known I couldn’t distract her brainwashed mind for too long. I had hoped, but she out maneuvered me. Got me with one of her venom mines and forced me to rewind.

OK, another stop. Let me point out that she had me chasing her, got leverage on me with a poisonous gas, and seriously had me at her mercy with the barrel of Widow’s Kiss aimed right at my left eye, and did she off me? No, she taunted me.

Some people might say “well, big deal, Lena. Villains get cocky and monologue and all that rot all the time on the holovids”. Well, bollocks to that. This weren’t no holovid. The world’s most proficient and arguably deadliest assassin had me bang to rights and decided to smirk at me than take the shot? You having a giggle? Something was up and, if I weren’t trying to keep her from killing Mondatta, I would have thought on it more right then.

So, then comes the shot. I often thought that if I just had just let her shoot me, Mondatta might still be alive. It sounds noble and all but it’s rubbish. If you’ve ever seen her at target practice like me, you’d know Widow’s Kiss ain’t your standard sniper rifle and it fires two inch armor piercing rounds at some ungodly velocity that someone tried to explain to me once but it was way too much for me to understand. Needless to say, even if I had sacrificed myself for the greater good, her shot would have traveled through my chest, killing me, and still had enough speed to take Mondatta out as he was attempting to escape in the waiting limo.

The real scary part: (and Amélie has even confirmed this later on) she wasn’t even aiming at me. Her shot and sights were solely squared on Mondatta. In other words, I hadn’t slowed her down more than a minor distraction.

She’s also told me, in confidence, that she knew I would trace out of the way to save myself. I asked her what she would have done if I hadn’t and she ended up killing me that night. She looked at me with wide golden eyes that spoke volumes of pure terror. Before I could even apologize for even playing around with the idea, she pulled me close to her and actually cried while holding me as tight as she could and rocking me back and forth in her arms. My French wasn’t very good at the time but I do believe she was frightfully whispering “please forgive me”. I never brought up the subject of our close calls ever again.

Well, so I lost it when I saw that I failed at stopping her and I was so hurt. I knew she was who she was. I thought that, somehow, I could find Amélie somewhere buried in Widowmaker. Try to get her to see reason. Actually, I wanted to try to see reason in why sweet, beautiful Amélie Lacroix would join Talon and kill Gérard. It made no sense. I was hurt and angry and just exploded! I screamed and tackled her to the ground, shook her once or twice, and yelled at her. I didn’t shoot her, I didn’t beat the living crap out of her, none of that. I wasn’t looking for revenge, I was looking for answers.

I was so shocked when she looked up at me with those soulless, predatory eyes and laughed at me. She didn’t feel any remorse or guilt. She was amused at my rantings. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

A feather would have been better actually because, about that time I’m straddling the woman on a rooftop demanding answers she thought it was foolish of me to even seek, a Talon transport ship of some sort emerged out of its cloaking and was practically floating no more than five meters above my head.

I remember thinking this was it. I was going to die. They finally caught Tracer right here literally gift wrapped in the arms of one of their top agents. I thought to myself, Widow’s bullet would have been merciful and quick compared to what horrors awaited me at the hands of Talon. Before my brain could snap out of the fog of dread I was caught up in, I felt two strong, slim hands grab hold of my coat and pull me back to the beautiful face of Widowmaker who, consequently, was still under me.

Ok, last pause I swear. Let’s review some things here. First, I felt her presence or, at the very least, felt danger when I shouldn’t have felt anything but the excitement of hearing Mondatta speak. Second, she had a shot at me twice and didn’t take it. Third, this arch-enemy of mine had me practically on a silver platter to hand over to her superiors, and what does she do? She grabs my attention because I’m too shocked to move seeing a Talon aircraft show up out of thin air, tells me goodbye and calls me _“chérie”_ (which I know now is “sweetheart” in French and I don’t know how I had always missed her calling me by a romantic term of endearment like that all this time), and proceeds to swing me into the side of the building below and _away_ from the slowly descending ship!

I should like to point out that she not only effectively knocked me out but, when I woke up some time after she was already long gone and the bobbies had sectioned off the crime scene below, I discovered she also had disabled my Chronal Accelerator to keep me from tracing after her (if I had regained consciousness before she made her escape) but not to such an extent as to make it a danger to my chronal disassociation. I remember being in a panic and called Winston to come get me and make sure I wasn’t going to return to the Void.

It wasn’t until he had me in the lab and I was telling him all that happened that he pointed out the same strange things Widowmaker did as I have for you just now. I thought about it long and hard for a few days after. He wasn’t very surprised when I came to him later that week and asked for any and all files we had on Widowmaker. All he said was “I hope you aren’t planning on going after her alone again”.

And of course I was but I didn’t tell _him_ that.

I did see her again and again. It was almost as if fate was bringing us together. At one point, I called to her as she was making an escape. I called her “Amélie” and she looked as if she were finally going to kill me. Once again, she did not. She seethed at me and said Amélie was gone. I simply responded by holding out my arms and telling her if that were true, than surely the infamous Widowmaker could take me down from such a short distance. She looked as I probably did that night in King’s Row when that Talon ship suddenly appeared. For a brief moment, I thought beyond hope that I had finally gotten through to her.

She didn’t take a shot but instead said something pretty filthy that I won’t bother to translate to English. Let’s just say cursing that colorful should never come out of a mouth that pretty. Ever. Then, when she had cursed me pretty creatively in her native language up one side and down the other, she gave me the finger, and turned and stomped off. I didn’t go after her. I knew I didn’t need to. She later would seek me out, almost stalk me, until, finally, she and I faced each other with words and not bullets. To this day, I remember her saying “parlay” with that beautiful French accent of hers. You’d have to be daft to turn that down.


	3. Amélie Memoir 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amélie recalls how it was to join ranks with Overwatch.

Amélie

 

_[She sits calmly and perfectly still until she gently takes a hold of her half filled wine glass. She swirls it around for a few moments gathering her thoughts before taking a drink.]_

 

The transition from Talon to working exclusively with Overwatch was, as you can well guess, not an easy one. For one thing, there is the little problem with leaving Talon and dealing with them to let their precious experiment go. I would have thought they would have no real use for me outside of being a controllable and disposable soldier but I was wrong. I should have known better. I have no idea how much time and finances they used to create and … “employ” me, but even to an organization that has ties to many big financial avenues, money is still money in the end. And if you invest time and great amounts of money into something, you want your investment to be worth your while, c'est à dire.

Thus, our proposed problem. Lena, of course, wanted me to leave Talon. She has a way for getting wonderful ideas but she is not a tactician. Let me see if I can translate this explanation properly. You know how they say you can’t see the forest for the trees? Lena is kind of like that. That is not to say she is a bumbling imbécile. Far from it, actually. Lena is more of a, ah … “go getter” I think the term is. She makes split decisions and is quick on her feet but long term planning or strategies are not her strong suit. I don’t know if she’s just easily excitable, has an attention deficit disorder of some sort, or just tends to get bored easily, but when something needs doing, she doesn’t like to wait around with, as she so delicately puts it, “our thumbs up our arses”.

 

_[Amélie chuckles]_

 

I’m still getting used to some of her more interesting English idioms. The other day she said “all mouth and no trousers” and I was really confused for more than a few moments. She hadn’t even known she had confused me until she saw my eyes. She’s perceptive about me like that. When I asked her what that meant, she laughed good and hard.

“I can only imagine you thinking of that guy running around with no pants on,” she said between laughs. She’s right, of course. I knew that wasn’t possibly what she had meant but I was thinking the fellow we were talking about was running around in his underwear. I knew I couldn’t be right about that. If you knew the man we were talking about at the time, one would hope he wasn’t running around in his underwear. Not an attractive person to say the least.

Ah, _revenons à nos moutons_. I know I seem to stray from the subject at hand but it is good to just talk sometimes, _t’sais?_

So, we hatched this plan with the help of some of the people with Overwatch to fake my own death. It was a simple plan, to be honest, but not one without delicate planning and a lot of hiding. Truth be told, I had some inside help. I’m thinking Sombra. She always had a kind of, well, companionship with me. I was always cold to her … pfft, I was cold to everyone … but she managed to see past it. I remember her saying something to the effect of “you belong here as much as I do, Araña”.

Araña means “spider” in Spanish, by the way. She called everyone by nicknames. She’s a lot like Lena in that regard; although, Lena calls me either “Widow” (when we are on a mission) or “Amé” (casually).

I had always called her _chérie_. I can truly tell you that there was no conscious reason for me to do so. For whatever reason, I was impressed by her and wasn’t cold to her as I was to everyone else. Well, let’s be honest, less colder to her than anyone else. She was, by far, the only one to keep up with me, grab hold of me and not let go, and simply dare to get my attention and hold it. Even in my earlier days of Talon, no one – and I do mean _no one_ – dared to get my attention.

The only one who ever even came close was Sombra and I think she was just keeping me on my toes. She liked to play the part of the _buffoon_ , but I will let you in on a little secret: like Lena, you do not underestimate Sombra. She may laugh and play around and make you think she is never serious about anything. But she is. I would say out of anyone who works with Talon, outside of Dr. Moira O’Deorain, Sombra would be considered the most dangerous. Good thing she has a pure heart. Don’t tell her I told you that, though. It would ruin her reputation she has so carefully crafted.

It was about the time I started hiding with Overwatch that Dr. Ziegler – ah, I think everyone knows her better as Mercy – started some treatments for me. As feared, many of Talon’s enhancements were irreversible. She was outraged as some of the more, ah, controversial genetic and surgical procedures they had performed on me. She was even more outraged when she found that many of them were done while I was awake and being conditioned so that it served as not only medical adaptation experimentation but physical torture to break my mind better. A few of the procedures were done when they had kidnapped me.

How do I know they kidnapped me and did these things? Because, with time and meditation sessions I have had with the Omnic monk, Zenyatta, I broke through many mental barriers to see the truth in all things. We are all one in the Iris, indeed.

As he once told me, when you open your eyes, you can see things as they really are. It was confusing at first and he even told me this in French. I soon learned what he was telling me. I use it on missions as well. My infra visor can detect heat signatures of targets from up to thirty meters even behind walls or obstacles. My eyes, however, can see much more and can alert me and my team (if I am with one) of movement or changes that may be detrimental to a mission. It is not only my job as a sniper to defend, I also use my skills as an assassin to find a way in, get what we need, and get out with little or no detection. That takes a certain attention to details. It would be amateurish to try to sneak in and steal an objective, for example, only to be caught by some wandering guard taking a smoke break.

Same with my mental exercises and meditation. Zenyatta encouraged me to see with my inner eyes and trust what they saw over what my physical eyes could. I do feel with my awareness more than my own instincts more often than not. Lena says she does the same thing. Calls it “listening to her gut” although I have no idea what her stomach really has to offer in being more aware of your surroundings. I can only imagine this is another one of those idioms she says.

Talon found out I was alive and well after a while. If Sombra were keeping me from being found, she could only do it for so long or until she felt it wasn’t necessary to do so anymore. I’m not sure how she feels about me being with Overwatch over Talon now. She certainly hasn’t made any direct moves against me and I don’t think it is really out of fear for her life. If she did come after me, she knows she would have to be very evasive because all it takes is one wrong move and I could take her out. She’s no fool and she is also not as fast or agile as Lena. I’m not saying I want to kill her, I’m saying that she and I both know that if came down to conflict and bullets, she is at a high disadvantage and, like I said, Sombra is no fool. Not only that, but she has no reason to oppose me. Oh, sure, Overwatch and Talon are definitely at odds with each other, obviously. But personally, Sombra has no interest in being my target practice. That is good for both of us because I have no interest in shooting at her.

 

_[Amélie takes another drink of her wine and closes her eyes to taste it and gather her thoughts]_

 

The only one who has said anything about me defecting would be Akande. You know him better as Doomfist. Akande sees me as a very beautiful and very dangerous moth that was forced to change and adapt. Like Sombra, I think he sees me working with Overwatch as a metamorphosis into my own person. Talon was holding me back and enslaving me and I broke from that to follow my own path. I’m not saying he likes it. Au contraire, he hates it. But I can see that he accepts and even respects it. He may see Overwatch as weak or ignorant of what he is trying to accomplish, but he doesn’t see me in that way. To him, I am a paradigm of his philosophy. Adapt, overcome, and be stronger for it. Kind of like that old saying “that which does not kill you simply makes you stronger”.

Reaper sees it as blatant treachery. Of course Gabriel Reyes would. He feels everyone betrayed him. He trusts no one and only follows his own agendas. I’m not one to judge as I am only discovering who I really am as opposed to who I thought I was. I will say that I feel something for him. If I were to label what I feel, it would be sadness. Hmm, he would certainly growl out something to that like “I don’t need your pity”. Ha ha ha.

I pity him because maybe someone should.

 

_[Amélie takes another drink before pouring more wine into her glass. She swirls it around for a moment as she did before and closes her eyes as she softly inhales the scent before sipping it with a satisfied hum]_

 

My family, the Guillard family, had a small winery in Annecy. Did you know that? This is one of the older vintages: a Merlot from 2042. A very good vintage. It is true that fine wine improves with age and the same can be said about life.

If you were thinking that when I defected that Overwatch accepted me with open arms, I cannot express how wrong you would be with any words. I do believe that, if Lena had not only vouched for me or acted as a buffer between me and many of the Overwatch members and allies, they would have killed me with their bare hands. Some were uncomfortable around me and others were openly hostile. Gérard was a friend and comrade to many of them. Others who recently joined, saw me as an enemy still. Talon had caused damage with many organizations over the world and not just Overwatch.

Some, like Angela Ziegler were indifferent. Not openly hostile but not friendly either. She was one of the first to approach me with at least good intentions. I replied in kind and soon, we grew to accept each other. Are we friends? Well, not in the traditional sense, I suppose, but we are closer. I find I care about her more and feel a bond with her. Not as much as I do with Lena, of course. Lena and I are lovers as well as friends and comrades-in-arms. I would doubt anyone will ever be as close to me as Lena is.

On the other hand is Fareeha Amari who, still to this day, is quiet around me and does not go out of her way to talk. We have worked together on missions and she can remain professional as can I. Once we discovered Ana, her mother, was still alive, then I had two Amaris to deal with. I will say out of the two I was better at dealing with Fareeha than Ana.

One day, I simply approached Ana after she and Morrison had come out of hiding and rejoined Overwatch proper. She was already dealing with Fareeha and I didn’t want to make a big deal out of an already difficult situation. I simply came up to her and without waiting for her to acknowledge my presence, I simply said “If I had been in my right mind, I would have never did what I did. I have been told you remember who I was before becoming Widowmaker. In that regard, you have me at a disadvantage. I can’t tell you how horrifying it is to learn that everything you thought you knew and everything you thought you were was all a terrible lie. I didn’t do the things I did because I wanted to. I did them because some _connard_ _made_ me want to.”

I remember she didn’t turn around as she simply asked “so, you were a hapless victim?”

The disbelief and condescension in her voice made me want to turn away and just leave her to stew in her hate but Lena had told me that part of breaking through what Talon had done was trying to feel again. Show compassion, patience, and love. Zenyatta had told me the same things.

“ _Oui_ ,” I simply said. “From what I have been told, Gérard never brought me around base in Switzerland except as a civilian. I do not remember any training except when I was already with Talon. Lena tells me I was in ballet which I am starting to remember. I may not remember much of who I was but you would know the answer to this better than I would: do you honestly think Amélie Lacroix would have willingly joined a terrorist organization and killed her own husband? Does that remotely sound like anything I would have done?”

She had stood with her back turned to me, looking out over the horizon from where we were standing. She said nothing so I continued.

“I need help,” I said. “They took away my emotions, they took away my heart, they took away my will, and my very identity and yet, here I stand. I survived but I am broken. I am trying to heal. So the question is, are you going to help me regain what I lost and help me heal, or are you going to let Talon truly kill me? They want me to have no where to go, you understand. They had me kill Gérard, kill my life, kill everything dear to me so that I would have no choice but them. Lena loves you all as she loves me. You are her family. I need that as well. Don’t leave me alone to die. I have been through more than you realize.”

She stood silent and I waited for her to say something, anything. She didn’t. With a sigh, I turned to leave her and saw Fareeha standing nearby. I stopped and we looked at each other for a moment before she nodded and turned away.

The next day, I was sitting with Lena in the mess hall and we were both surprised as Fareeha came and sat with us. We looked at each other and looked back at Fareeha before she sighed and said “what all can you remember from before?”

It was an interesting lunch.

Later on, a day or so later, Ana surprised me with coming by the private quarters I share with Lena to invite me to target practice. We did more talking than shooting and I found out a great deal of who I once was from her.

It has been several months now, but the others are growing more or less used to me. It is good to have people who care.


	4. Lena Memoir 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks about what it's like to have Widowmaker with Overwatch

Lena

 

I won’t go into a great detail about how we helped Amélie escape. It was not a flawless plan by any means but it worked. Being a pilot, I am normally well acquainted with improvisation. You never know what could go wrong flying and your hundreds of meters in the air going hundreds of kilometers an hour. I think that sort of spot-on training is what helps me prepare for the worst in any situation. I mean, there are the occasional surprises but you have to keep on your toes.

Amélie says I’m not very good at long term planning and she’s right for the most part. Reason being is I can’t factor in every and all obstacles that may come along and turn the whole affair into a dog’s dinner. I make spur of the moment decisions because that’s how my brain works. Given all I’ve gone through with my chronal disassociation, living every moment in the here and now is kind of hardwired in my brain.

With a few minor adjustments and some quick action, we got her out and covered our tracks as best we could. She was treated and hidden for a good month or two before she went out on a mission with us and Talon found she had defected thanks to Reaper and Doomfist. They didn’t vow any vengeance or anything like you would think. They were surprised at least. As they retreated when we drove them off, Doomfist turned to Amélie and looked her right in the eye before he nodded and ran off with the others. I asked her what that was all about and she simply said that Doomfist reluctantly respects her. He’s a strange bloke.

So we get her more or less out of Talon’s system and with us. She’s not officially Overwatch. I’d say she’s more like one of the allied agents we have like Symmetra or when we have to employ the Junkers: Junkrat and Roadhog. They work with us but they aren’t officially associated with Overwatch, if you catch my meaning. Symmetra, for example, is a primary ambassador for Vishkar Corporation and works with Overwatch more often than not. She even works well with Lucio who has had some issues with Vishkar and she makes sure her brother doesn’t do anything more corrupt like he did in Brazil.

Shortly after Amélie joined up with us, Angela did extensive research on the genetic and surgical enhancements and modifications Widowmaker had. Amélie was very cooperative. Much of what had been done to her was without permission or could be remembered. Angela only had one episode where Amélie almost went into seizures with some repressed memory of torture. We’ve had to be absolutely careful since then. I should also like to point out that it took me, Fareeha, and Winston to hold her down until we could get her calm which really opened my eyes to just how lucky I was that she quite possibly was pulling her punches when we fought.

She has accepted her name as well. Almost everyone calls her Amélie – or “Widow” if they just aren’t that comfortable with being familiar with her. I asked what she was called at Talon and she simply said “either Widowmaker or Lacroix”. I think it was cruel that she was constantly reminded of Gérard. I just know those arseholes did it on purpose. I bet they think they are real jokers. I don’t find it funny at all.

Amé has since gone to accept the Widowmaker call sign as some sort of Red Badge of Courage, to refer to that classic novel. Don’t look at me like that. I read.

Anyway, she uses it as a way to remember and overcome. It’s become a symbol of escaping her torment and she bears it proudly.

She’s getting along better with the others which is a good thing. Some were not so hot about the idea of one of our most notorious enemies joining our ranks and becoming “one of the good guys”. It took a lot of persuasion on my end almost to the point of being exhausting. Some were just uncomfortable around her and others were just openly hateful. Ana Amari for one, but then again, if Amé had shot me through the eye, killed my pride, left me for dead, and forced me to go into hiding for a few years, I’d be within my rights to be pissed too. She got over it eventually.

You see, the problem is people were under the impression that she did this on her own. Like I’ve said before, I didn’t know Amélie Lacroix much before her kidnapping. I was a rather new member of the Overwatch team when it happened. The only ones that really knew how she was – to a certain extent because Gérard didn’t have her on base much – was Ana, Jack, Reinhardt, Torb, and, of course, Angela. I make special attention to Angela because, for the longest time, the poor woman thought that she was to blame for what happened to Amélie. She carried around this guilt ever since Gérard was found dead and Amélie went missing only to show up a year later with blue skin and a sniper rifle. Amé has since reassured her that this was never her fault and that if Angela should blame anyone for what happened, she should lay the blame squarely on Talon’s shoulders.

I think Angela and Amélie have created a special bond since this. It’s a way for both of them to heal. I was a bit worried when Fareeha hovered nearby like a protective mother looking after her child. There’s been a rumor that Fareeha and Angela are secretly lovers but I can tell you that they do love each other and are close, but they don’t LOVE each other, if you know what I mean. They are like sisters and share everything and no one can deny that the two are inseparable. I did ask in strict confidence one day as I was getting my physical. Fareeha blushed furiously and Angela giggled both at my question and Fareeha’s response. “No, Liebling,” she said wiping her eyes and catching her breath, “I am sorry to say that you are the only one into other women that I know of.”

I gotta admit, I was kinda disappointed. I mean, they are my friends but I’m not going to lie. The thought of Fareeha and Angela making out or anything else is hot as hell. I know I can’t be the only one who thinks that. I’m just going to keep that to myself. Well, ok, I have shared this with Amé, but I can tell you now, she ain’t blabbing.

So Fareeha gets along with Amélie but they aren’t like BFFs or anything like that. It’s not so much tension as it was in the beginning and she has accepted her. There’s this weird thing they do. It’s a kind of salute. I asked about it once and Angela told me Fareeha and Amélie do it as a sign of respect more than waving to a friend or something. I asked her if she thought Fareeha would ever be friends with Amélie and Angela said that Fareeha could be stubborn and head-strong but that, just from the mutual acceptance they already showed each other, they were at least colleagues. That’s a big step in the right direction in my book.

Hana, um, D.Va, she was absolutely scared to death of Amélie at first as was Mei. Hana is one of my good friends so she kind of had to get used to Amélie since we are together. I play video games with Hana when she and I are on base. Amélie would normally sit quietly and observe. Hana was a little unnerved by that.

I think that’s what people have a problem with when they are trying to get used to Amé. You see, she’s slowly getting her emotions back and tends to be pretty well introverted for the most part. She used to be cold and arrogant but, since her treatments and the meditation sessions she’s been having with Zenyatta and Symmetra, her former personality is starting to emerge as well as her feelings. I guess many people would find it weird to have someone just sit and quietly observe with a blank look on their face. Used to, if you didn’t see a quirk of an eyebrow or a slight widening or narrowing of those golden eyes of hers, you wouldn’t even be able to tell Amélie was listening to you at all.

Once, we were on a mission – me, her, Reinhardt, Fareeha, and Angela with Jesse and Hana as backup – and, on our way back from delivering a payload with some minimal resistance, Jesse was talking to Hana about something regarding how the mission played out like one of her video games. Out of no where, Amélie speaks up and makes a joke. She sat for a moment and there was dead silence. She finally looked up, seemingly surprised that she had actually spoken aloud, with a wide-eyed kind of apprehensive expression on her face. To her absolute embarrassment, everyone was staring at her in shock.

By the way, she turns a pale shade of purple when she blushes. Just so you know.

Suddenly, Reinhardt slaps his knee and lets loose with a full-on belly laugh. The others start to chuckle and, before long, everyone is giggling along with Reinhardt who says “good one, Amélie!”. Even Fareeha cracked a smile and chuckled. Amélie’s humor and wit are rather dry, but she’s getting better.

Mei could barely look her in the eye. Poor girl was absolutely terrified of her when she first started coming around. I think the turning point for her was she asked me about Amélie. She told me that she didn’t want to be rude or make Amé feel unwelcome. I told her all I could think of when it came to Amélie. I remember telling her that if more people treated her like a friend and fellow Overwatch partner, she’d warm up more and it would help out immensely.

Mei took this to heart and quite literally. She came to our room once and introduced herself to Amélie. She gave her a large box and said that in China, it was a “friend day” or something and she thought Amélie would like this. It turned out to be an arctic parka. Amélie found it to be a strange gift until Mei explained that she had been in an Overwatch base in the Arctic and knew the importance of maintaining body heat. She told Amélie that, because of her slower heart rate and lowered body temperature, she could be cessible to colder temperatures. Amélie assured her that she didn’t feel the cold really and Mei said “oh” with a slightly embarrassed pout. Then, Amélie did something unexpected. She gave Mei a hug and told her thank you that if she ever had to go to the Arctic or somewhere where it was cold, she could use the coat and that it was a very thoughtful gift. Mei and Amé have been friends ever since.

Now, outside of me, a few Overwatch members and allies are very close to Amélie for various different reasons. The Shimada brothers, for one. Or is it two? Ah, nevermind. You know what I mean. Genji introduced Amé to Zenyatta and they both have helped her with her mental state of mind and control. She feels a certain connection to both Genji and Hanzo. Hanzo knows what it is like to do things you regret. Genji knows what it is like to forgive and find forgiveness.

Jesse McCree has been rather close to her as well. Surprisingly, she and he have had some heart to heart talks. Jesse and Hanzo found a kind of kinship with their professions I believe and Amélie fit right in as well. I teased ol’ Jesse about trying to make a move on my girl and he gave me a mock snarl. “No way,” he said with a chuckle. “Now, I ain’t saying Widow’s not a looker, cause we both know she is, but I like having my head on my shoulders, if it’s all the same to you”. I couldn’t help but laugh at that. Yeah, if Amé wasn’t interested I bet she would find new and interesting ways to let you know no means no. Jesse can’t help but flirt anyway and I bet you anything Amé doesn’t mind.

Symmetra has helped her with many things as well. If Zenyatta has helped her find balance in her head, Satya has helped her find a balance with mind and body. They have been doing Yoga sessions. Now, I thought I was pretty limber, but when compared to an Indian “Swami” and a former ballerina, I suck. I just decided to sit and watch and concentrate on my breathing. Some poses I can do, some poses I have no idea how they do it, and some poses have me gawking and asking myself “you bloody wot?”. I will say this, Amé is very flexible and, to be honest, it’s hard to keep my breathing steady when she’s all posed in certain ways. She, of course, has caught me staring and gives me a knowing smile that makes me blush so hard my ears turn red. Namaste indeed.

Winston and Jack talk with Amélie over Talon tactics, or whatever she can remember, and she’s been very helpful. We also keep a close eye on her because we know that Talon will not tolerate a traitor. At first, neither of them were going to let her out on missions until Angela told them both that this would be a very, very bad decision to keep someone who had psychotic and homicidal tendencies with no positive outlet caged up. She reasoned that this would cause Amélie to become worse with all the effects she was already facing with PTSD and other mental trauma. In other words, if she’s not allowed to do what she normally does, but in a healthy sort of way, she could truly be lost in every sense of the word. Ana is also a sniper, I had added, and she doesn’t have to kill her targets although she is able to do so with ease. We have other members and allies who, as far as the world is concerned, are dangerous. “Hell,” I remember saying, throwing my hands in the air, “do I even have to mention Jamison?”

I must have made a cracking good speech because both Winston and Morrison agreed (which is not something that happens often, just so you know). So, we have a sniper along with Ana out in the field. She doesn’t kill unless given the green light and we never send her on assassination missions no matter how wanted or despicable an enemy might be.

I had come in from some away time because Amélie and Winston were going over some things that he felt she was privy to when it came to any Talon higher ups besides Doomfist. I found her swinging lazily in one of his tire swings eating a banana while he lounged on another with a jar of peanut butter and they compiled data to Athena’s databanks. I couldn’t help but laugh. It was certainly a sight and I wish I had taken a photo.

All in all, it is a process that is not come full circle. Not everyone is all chummy in Overwatch but we work together with our own and those who join forces with us. As I lay with her sometimes at night, cuddled under a blanket, I feel her cool skin warm up to mine. Sometimes, if I can maneuver my head to her chest, I can feel and listen to her slow, steady heartbeat. It only beats like one beat per minute or something crazy like that, but as long as it’s there, I know she’s safe. I love her. I know I would do anything for her and will always do my best to make sure she stays safe.


	5. Amélie Memoir 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amélie tells of what it's like to be with Lena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French phrases:  
> Tu devras me pardonner - You will have to forgive me.  
> Comment dites-vous - how you say  
> Mon Dieu - My God  
> C'est la vie - such is life  
> Je vous promets - I promise you

Amélie

 

_[Amélie sits, lost in her thoughts, idly making circles with her trigger finger, before she lets a smile spread]_

 

_Tu devras me pardonner_ , I cannot give you the details of what it’s like to be with Lena. I know so many people want to focus on sexual details. I am not a woman who … _comment dites-vous_ … kisses and tells, _oui?_

 

_[Amélie chuckles and licks her lips]_

 

I will tell you this much. She is an amazing lover. Not just what she can do in the bedroom, of course, but how she makes me feel. If you know me well enough, you know that the declaration of feeling is not a slight one. She makes me feel. What exactly does she make me feel? Well, she makes me feel vulnerable and strong and fragile but empowered but, most importantly, she makes me feel loved.

Some would scoff at that. I know I would have before. The concept of love was a distant memory. It is sad, _non?_ When your emotions are so far gone that you have forgotten what it was like to love and be loved.

I don’t know how she did it. She does have certain charm and personality. She opened my eyes and my heart. I hadn’t even really started to think of Gérard or how I felt about him until she came around and … _enfin_ … worked whatever magic an annoying but perfectly cute British girl could do.

I think it was how she reacted to me when we first met and then, what she did when I assassinated Mondatta. I saw the hurt in her eyes. I am not blind. She could have killed me that night. Lost in a cloud of anger and vengeance. I wouldn’t have had a chance against the onslaught of such an emotional outburst. But we all know she didn’t do that at all.

No, she grabbed me, threw me down, I thought she was going to hurt me, or kill me, but she only made me look her in the eye and demanded I tell her why I would do something so horrible as to kill someone she looked up to so much in cold blood.

Want to know a horrible secret? Deep down, for reasons unknown to me at the time, I wanted her to kill me. I wanted a release from my life even if I didn’t truly understand why.

My first reaction was to laugh because, really? Did she not know who I was? But that was the real question. Who was I? Who was I really? She looked so shocked and surprised when I chuckled. It wasn’t until much later I would have that look shake me to the very core of my mind. I thought I was Widowmaker, assassin for Talon. She saw deeper and that tore something open in my heart.

I didn’t question it. I felt it, surely, but I didn’t question it. I shoved it away in the farthest corners of my mind after I saved her.

You heard me correctly. She can even attest to this. I saved her that night. It wasn’t until I was safely back on the transport, headed back to one of our temporary bases, that I felt it. I thought I had won. I thought how foolish she was for trying to reach out to me but then, I suddenly knew who she was reaching for. Why she did what she did and said what she had said.

She had faith in me, looked up to me in some strange way, and I shattered that. She really thought I wasn’t going to do it. She really thought I was above killing him. I mean, what was she thinking, I remember wondering. Did she think she would run me off? Change my mind?

No, I realized as a crack formed in Talon’s careful conditioning. Not change my mind. She was hoping I was in my right mind. She was hoping that somehow, I was still Amélie Lacroix and that she could, somehow, help her to overcome whatever Talon had done to make Widowmaker. In a way, even though neither of us realized it at the time, she had.

We watched an old science fiction movie trilogy that she likes even though it is over a hundred years old. It is called Star Wars. Silly name, I know, but it is very interesting and a classic I am told. In it, there is a villain named Darth Vader. He’s very menacing, or I suppose he must have been in 1976, in black armor and a fearsome helmet. He had lights and buttons controlling life support systems in his armor and a long, black cloak. He also had deep, rather frightening, breathing.

In the trilogy, there is a young boy named Luke who grows up to be a powerful warrior … a “Jedi”, if I remember correctly … and learns that this Darth Vader is actually his father. I don’t remember his name before he changed it to Darth Vader. It sounded vaguely middle eastern but Fareeha and Ana said it was definitely not Egyptian and Satya says it is not Indian either.

Anyway, Luke tries to convince his father, Darth Vader, that he has been seduced by the Dark Side of the Force and that he can still see good in him. It isn’t until the last movie that he finally convinces him and Darth Vader betrays the evil Emperor and helps Luke escape to take down the Empire.

I’m sure you see the parallels in the film’s plot and my own story. That is what Lena saw in me. Although I was forced into this by Talon, Lena saw the good in me. Or, at least she hoped she did.

That night, I wondered why I saved her. I tried saying that if anyone killed her, it would be me and not Talon. I wanted her all to myself. I tried telling myself that she was mine and mine alone. Those thoughts made me wonder why I seemed to care about her so much. I tried to say she only annoyed me, that she was a worthy foe, blah blah blah. I know now that I was fooling myself with that nonsense.

The damage had already been done. I had ruined her faith in me. She had thought I was truly gone. What she didn’t grasp was that she succeeded. She blasted away at the barriers that Talon had made in my mind and in my heart and, before I knew it, I was remembering. Oh, I fought it. I did everything I could to maintain what I had been told. I was Widowmaker. Amélie Lacroix was gone. She was a weak and dead part of me and my past.

But they were wrong. She wasn’t dead. Deep inside, there was a small part of me that woke up. Every time I went to King’s Row – and there were a couple of missions I did there – I would remember the kill. I would feel pride in my work. The sight of my finest kill!

And yet, in the corners of my mind, I was weeping. I felt guilt for what I had done. I felt guilt for hurting people.

And I felt guilt for hurting her.

 

_[Amélie pauses and seems startled to feel her cheeks wet. She gathers a couple of tissues and wipes her eyes with a sigh]_

 

_Mon Dieu_ , I’m still getting used to that. Crying, even a little, is such a rare thing. I used to think I couldn’t cry. It is a bother at times. _C'est la vie_.

You know, if she were here right now, she would pull me into a hug and probably kiss my face. I would probably softly cry in her arms. I have before. I wouldn’t feel any revulsion to her touch. I would welcome it.

The first time she ever touched me – and I don’t mean fought with me or grappled me like she did on that rooftop that fateful night – I remember thinking that she was so _warm_. I don’t just mean the actual temperature of her skin and hands. I mean that and the emotion behind the gesture. She was soft, tender, her touch was electric I guess you could say. Her fingers brushed my cheek and her thumb traced my mouth and I knew, from that moment, I was lost. It was the first time I felt tears in such a long time. She wiped them away of course, but she did so with the same tenderness as she caressed my cheek. I don’t remember what all I had said. I know I said I don’t know how to be sorry for the things I had done but I only hoped she would forgive me. She did more than that. She kissed me.

 

_[Amélie touches her lips and smiles]_

 

After that, I was – as she would say – a goner. She said the most beautiful thing to me. I will never forget what she said as long as we both live. She said “I knew you were still here”.

She has told me that she thought of giving up on me. Accepting that Amélie was dead and gone and only Widowmaker remained. But, she said, she had one of her famous gut feelings that all was not lost. It has taken a good amount of time, patience, soul searching, and discoveries, but I am well on my way to being both Widowmaker and my own person. I am turning away from the Dark Side and fulfilling my true destiny.

 

_[Amélie smiles for a few moments, no doubt thinking of Lena and private moments they shared]_

 

Some people would say that me turning to a woman for love is strange. Indeed, I was married to a man before and I can tell you, from what I remember, I was never attracted to women before. Nor am I attracted to them in particular now. Only Lena catches my eye in this way. We don’t choose who we fall in love with, I once heard someone say.

It’s not like Lena is at all masculine in any way either. She has short hair but it has some length to the spikes and she is definitely female. No hard lines or chiseled features that you would find attractive qualities of a man. No, Lena is all long limbs and curves. Her face is heart shaped and adorably feminine. She wears eyeliner and some mascara but, outside of the lip balm she uses to keep her lips from chapping, she doesn’t wear or need makeup. I remember the first time she got her nails done. She came home and proudly displayed her fingertips with a broad grin saying “Look, Love! French Manicure!”

 

_[Amélie chuckles]_

 

I don’t know how I fell in love with her or she with me, but I am glad it happened. I don’t know what I would do without her and I know she feels the same. Especially, I found out later, after she had a break from a girl she was dating. Ironically, the girl’s name was Emily.

I never knew her – although Lena says I would have liked her – but, from what Lena has said about her, she was a wonderful girl who was just in over her head and couldn’t take Lena being a hero anymore. I asked if she wasn’t proud of what Lena did and Lena jolted at what I had insinuated.

“Oh, no it was nothing like that!” she insisted. “Ems just couldn’t take being alone anymore. You see, I was always going here and there and doing missions – which, might I remind you, are illegal – and she couldn’t take having a girlfriend who was never around.”

I must have had some frightful look on my face because Lena took hold of my shoulders and looked me right in the eyes as she said “She didn’t do anything wrong, Amé. She wasn’t selfish, she was lonely. It was all on me, you see. I chose being a hero over being with her.”

“You didn’t choose,” I told her. “You did what you had to do. Sometimes, we don’t choose what happens to us. We just deal with it as best as we can, oui?”

I didn’t realize my words had such an effect on her until she pulled me into a tight embrace and whispered in my ear. “Promise me that I won’t drive you off too.”

I held her back tightly and tried to copy the warmth she made as I said “I will always be with you. From now and until the end of time. _Je vous promets._ ”


	6. Lena Memoir 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena talks of Emily and Amélie.

Lena

 

_[Lena sighs and shakes her head]_

 

Ah, Emily. Yeah, people who hear these memoirs will wonder how I’m with Amélie when I am supposed to have a girlfriend. I’ve even heard it before when asked if the whole “Widowtracer” ship was even possible. People always saying “oh, no. Tracer and Widowmaker? Pfft! Never gonna happen. Besides, Tracer’s got a girlfriend!”

Well, I had a girlfriend. Past tense until Amélie.

I don’t know if I should go into details of how Emily and I met because, frankly, reading all the theories people put out on the internet are really interesting. I will tell you some things though. First, we met after my accident with the Slipstream and my chronal disassociation. Second, no, she has never been part of Overwatch before or after the PETRA Act. Emily was, and is, a civilian – which was part of the issue with our relationship.

So what happened, you ask? Well, being that I am a vigilante and I’m not supposed to be doing anything remotely heroic or I’ll find myself in the clink, it’s hard to keep something like that under your hat for long and the pressure of keeping such things from the fuzz takes its toll.

Everyone knows who I am. When you can’t go out for a bagel and some coffee in the morning without strapping on a device that is roughly the size of a small backpack, people tend to notice. My face is all over the place. I mean, that was one of the main selling points of me joining Overwatch. I was the poster girl. Well, I can tell you that being a celebrity of sorts has its ups and downs. Especially when what your famous for became a dog’s dinner lickity split. Ever since Black Watch was uncovered and all the undercover and black ops missions they did was exposed to the world like we were secretly the bad guys, I find myself in a bit of a pickle if you know what I mean.

Not everyone is nice to me. Not everyone sees me as a hero. There is still a lot of sore feelings about Overwatch and, lucky me, I get to be the face people wanna punch for it. That is bad news for me and it is bad news for Emily who had nothing to do with it.

Then, on top of the unwanted attention and pressure that causes, Emily also found herself alone a lot. More often than not, I would be called to help in a situation or something would come up and, whamo! I’d have to apologize for being late or something because my schedule isn’t really a typical nine to fiver.

I’ll give you an example that everyone can attest to: King’s Row and the assassination of Mondatta. I was merely passing through. I had just done a bit of work and heard that Mondatta was speaking that night and I found myself in the right place at the right time and figured I’d crash the party and listen to the Omnic Voice of the Iris speak. We all know I wasn’t the only party crasher and before I knew it, I’m playing tag with Widowmaker up on the rooftops and Mondatta is dead. I’m sure she’s already told you how she saved me from being captured.

It took three days before I was able to get to Emily and tell her what happened because I had to see Winston first to get my bloody chronal accelerator fixed. She was not happy. She grabbed hold of me and cried, yelled at me about how worried she was when I hadn’t returned any calls or anything, smacked me pretty hard on the arm, and then hugged me like her life depended on it and cried some more.

I did my best to tell her I was sorry. I mean flowers, candy, a whole night of cuddling on the couch, and some absolute girlfriend schmoozing for a couple of days to make up for it. Then my stupid arse forgets to get her a Christmas gift. She ended up taking Winston’s scarf and I got him another one.

 

_[Lena sighs again and shakes her head. She takes a few sips of her tea.]_

 

It wasn’t like I was trying to be so difficult. I really loved her, y’know. She was a wonderful woman and I just couldn’t balance who I was and being with her.

A lot of the blame can be put on the Slipstream accident too. I got pretty buggered up and I don’t mean just physically. Everyone knows what happened to me but they don’t really know the whole story.

I dunno if you are religious but it don’t matter. I read the bible sometimes. I got a good standing with God and all. I figure, in my line of work, it’s good to have someone like Him on my side.

Anyways, in the first part, when the bible talks about how God created everything, it says that the Earth was without form and void. There’s a reason why God started with creating light. The void is one of the scariest things I can imagine. It is totally without form, that much is true. It is without anything. No light, no form, no weight, no senses, no nothing. And you are totally alone. No one can see you, no one can hear you, and you float without purpose or sense of self, time, emotion, anything. It is scary as hell. The only thing I could feel was cold and alone. I prayed for the first time in a long time that I would be saved. That somehow, I would find my way back from this … emptiness.

I started to find my way back, here and there. I’d catch glimpses of people, places, I’d hear things and voices. One day, finally, the light came on. I could hear and see and there was Angela and Winston. I saw them. I heard them. I looked at my hands and felt my face. I felt my skin. I reached out and grabbed hold of Winston’s arm and cried when I felt the fur and warm skin under it. Angela hugged me and I felt her. I felt her cry and I cried too.

It was at that point, I knew, I never wanted to be alone again. I never want anyone to be alone or lost like I was.

 

_[Lena taps her nose and smiles]_

 

And now you know why I tried so hard to make things work with Emily and why I all but poured my heart out to a heartless French killer.

Emily was warm and beautiful and I thought this was something to be a constant in my life since Overwatch fell. We hadn’t been recalled yet so I wasn’t active. Everyone had split off. Angela went back to Sweden, as did Torbjorn to be with his wife and have a huge family (seriously, they could practically repopulate a small village with as many children as they have), and Reinhardt went back to Germany and his girl. Jesse McCree had drifted off probably back to the States. We thought Ana and Jack were dead. I did a few jobs here and there to keep my mind off of everyone being gone and, of course, I had savings from my pilot’s pension. I wasn’t starving by any means.

I was terrified of being alone. After the accident and all, I never wanted to be alone. I had become dependent on people and I have to admit, I threw myself into the relationship with Emily. I should have known that a simple civilian girl like her wouldn’t have been able to handle it. I should have known that I couldn’t do the things I had to do or respond to the recall with a missus at home waiting to see if I was going to be late for dinner … again. This wasn’t like I had a pet fish or something. This was a person who wanted to be with me, Lena Oxton. Not have to sit and worry about Tracer. I shouldn’t have expected her to be able to try and balance a relationship with responsibilities if I couldn’t do it myself.

So, one day, I get the call. She meets with me and breaks up with me. Tells me exactly what I feared and that she can’t be with someone who isn’t there for her when she needs them. I agree because I know exactly how she feels and I feel like a bloody hypocrite for being so afraid of being left alone myself and yet I did exactly that to her.

We still talk, she and I. Have lunch and things here and there. One day, I’ll have her meet Amélie. I’ll be honest though, meeting Widowmaker for the first time is a little frightening to say the least but I guess it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch when she already met and knew Winston. I mean, once you become acquainted with a hundred and eighty kilogram gorilla who can not only talk, but show human emotions and is a scientist of all things, everything else seems like a cakewalk.

So then I meet Widowmaker. She’s deadly, scary, and bloody beautiful as hell. Yes, I know I’m a total perv but when you see a bird like her dressed in high heeled boots and a catsuit that looks like it was painted on, you can’t help but notice! I mean, blimey, I’m not blind!

And, as fate would have it, and as any woman worth her salt will tell you, we always want the one thing that is totally wrong for us. It don’t matter if you’re straight, gay, or bisexual, human, Omnic, or what have you, it’s just in the cards, y’know. And I wanted her. Oh, boy did I want her.

I have to tell you it was beyond a shocker to find out who she was. I saw her face close up and it was like cold fist in the gut. I was looking at sweet Amélie Lacroix with pale blue skin and a sniper rifle shooting at people like she had been doing it for years.

I found out all I could about her. I was there when she was kidnapped. I remember Gérard and the crew searching everywhere and tracking Talon down night and day until they found her. I had only seen her a few times and I didn’t know her that well, as I’ve said. I remember thinking how overjoyed I was that she and Gérard were reunited.

When he was found dead and her missing, it absolutely crushed me but not as much as when I found out what had happened. To think Talon had tortured and brainwashed her into this … monster. It was worse than I could have ever thought or imagined.

It occurred to me as I was pouring over her files after our little tiff at King’s Row. She’s like me in a lot of ways. The only difference was I was aware I was drifting in a void. She didn’t.

I have had many talks with her about what she had felt first being with Talon. She says that she had no emotion. She was cold and empty. I shivered when she had first told me that. I told her what I had felt when I was trapped in time and space and she visibly shivered. To this day, I don’t know what brought us together but I can tell you that when something is meant to be, it finds a way.

Some would say we are codependent on each other. We’ve understood this and are working on dealing with that. It was hard at first because when you finally meet a kindred spirit, someone who truly understands you, you don’t want to leave their side. It was just as hard for her as it was for me. We went on different missions, had different quarters, and it would be days that we would spend apart. We would be ecstatic to see each other again, of course.

Once we established some healthy normal relationship boundaries, we moved in together. We no longer get withdrawls from being apart and, truthfully, Zenyatta suggested that we spend more time with each other than apart because we were actually helping one another instead of causing further damage in the long run. He told Morrison and Winston that it is more beneficial for us especially with Amélie’s mental state. She still suffers from PTSD, as do I, and it is always better to have someone around to monitor and reaffirm that you are, indeed, alright and not in the situation that you feared.

She’s been having reoccurring dreams of Gérard lately. I know if I hadn’t been by her side, she’d have a breakdown. Knowing that I’m there for her is more than reassuring. Like my chronal accelerator anchors me to the present, I am her anchor to this reality. She also helps me to remember that I am not going to float away into the void. Not when I have her by my side to hold me.

Things have not always been peachy keen. Sometimes, Amélie will lose herself in the thrill when she’s on missions and I have to remind her not to kill targets unless we have no other choice. Once, she turned her gun on me and we had an all out fight like we used to until I got a hold of her and had to remind her of who I was and what we were doing. That was very hard, believe me. She was on leave with some exclusive time with Zenyatta and Genji after that. I’m not sure what they did in Japan but when she came back, she and the Shimada brothers were like peas in a pod and she started calling Zenyatta “sensei”. Luckily, she hasn’t had a total blackout like that again.

Zen once told us during one of our meditation sessions with him, that we have to find that common ground. He showed us a Yin-Yang (that funny looking circle that’s part black and white with a dot of black in the white part and a dot of white in the black part) and told us that there is a balance to all things. That Yin (the black) represents all the negative and Yang (the white) is the positive but that there is always a little Yin in Yang and vice-versa. So, even in ancient Chinese philosophy, nothing is entirely black and white.

Amé and I balance one another. You can just tell it by our personalities and our profiles. Some are more obvious like I’m warm and she’s cold, I goof around and she’s serious, she’s all tall and exotic and I’m shorter and cute, etc. We didn’t really start seeing the balance until we started dating officially. We have loads in common and we also have differences that totally balance our relationship out.

I’ll tell you the one that really freaked me out and Satya pointed it out. We were coming back from a small mission one day and Satya had commented on our uniforms.

“You wear bright orange and yellows and Amélie normally wears purples and blues,” she said. “It’s kind of beautiful to see you side by side either on the field or after.”

“I normally wear these colors to blend into shadows better,” Amélie explained. She was sort of confused at what Satya was getting at.

“Ah, well I like oranges and yellows,” I said. “I’m more of the attention getter and she’s the back up. We’ve always worked best that way.”

“Yes,” Satya had said smiling. “You compliment each other so well that you even wear complimentary colors.”

This struck Amé like a bolt of lightning between the eyes because she looked at me and looked at herself and laughed with delight before kissing me on the cheek. She later explained to me about complementary colors and how they worked on the color wheel. I had remembered some things from art classes in grade school but it was nice to get a refresher. Satya was right about several things: we did compliment each other almost perfectly in many ways. Even if we didn’t realize it.

So, now, we both have someone to balance us. We never have to be alone again. We never have to fear that we will float off and be lost in the cold, dark void again. We have each other and we both have our comrades and friends. I don’t know what the future holds as I look at her and just enjoy her company. I like to stay in the here and now as much as possible. When I see that rare smile she gives me and know that the love and emotions she thought she had forgotten have returned and they are especially for me, I can’t help but smile back. We’ve both found our way out of our own abyss and I’m happy we both have found what our hearts needed even if it wasn’t what we thought we wanted. I may find her cold and scary and she may find me foolish and annoying, but we wouldn’t want it any other way.

 

_[Lena smiles as her thoughts drift before she sits up and gulps down the rest of her tea]_

 

On that note, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m going to see how my fair lady is doing playing video games with Hana. Cheers!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I liked writing this a lot. I started actually playing Overwatch after it was on sale for Black Friday and I'm still getting the hang of it LOL. There was just so much I saw with Lena and Amélie that I hope Blizzard will explore. Maybe (keeps fingers crossed) they might find some inspiration from my fan fics. Wouldn't that be cool? Thanks as always for the kudos and comments and thank you all for reading! Cheers!


End file.
